Extinction Level Event (Book 1): The Turn Read online

  Extinction Level Event:

  Book One

  The Turn

  Written by:

  J. Walker

  Extinction Level Event, Book One, The Turn Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Walker

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design Copyright © 2014 by Captain Louie, www.ZombieBrigade.com

  On Instagram follow @zombiebrigade_, @captainlouie

  On Etsy - ZombieBrigade

  Used with permission.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter One

  It was late February and the seemingly endless bane of winter had already begun its slow but quiet retreat. If memory served me right, it couldn’t last for long. March was fast approaching and everyone liked to point out the superstitious notion that it should come in like a lion and out like a lamb.

  The winter had been a particularly cold one for the region. Although we were no strangers to cold winters in this Canadian border city, the early months of the New Year had seen record setting snow fall and below freezing temperatures. Even the most winter hardy individual had been voicing their complaint.

  For a brief moment of contentment, I sipped my warm coffee that was spiked with Bailey’s Irish Cream and smiled to myself. I closed my eyes and imagined the coming spring. With very little effort, I was able to conjure up images of the trees with their green buds ready to burst into lush foliage. I could envision the spring bulbs pushing through the earth to blanket the earth in a vibrant array of color. Spring could not arrive soon enough. Everyone was far beyond winter weary.

  My eyes flew open and an exasperated sigh escaped my lips. Winter still gripped the world around me and spring had not arrived during my brief reverie.

  I drained the contents of my mug and watched the last remnants of the setting sun bathe the Detroit skyline in fading hues of orange and red. The light reflected on the Renaissance Centre and for a brief moment the suns dying rays caused the cluster of buildings to look as though they were engulfed in flames.

  My gaze shifted to the river ice that had broken up during the day. I watched as it drifted lazily on the slow moving current. An all too familiar chill was beginning to creep into the shelter of the sun porch and I shivered uncomfortably. Yet I remained unwilling to abandon my thoughts of spring.

  I need more coffee, I thought, and definitely more Bailey’s.

  I heard the creak of the door and turned to see my husband Marcus step out onto the covered porch. “Still waiting?” He asked as he reached out to gently massage the tension from my shoulders.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I am.” I replied, hoping my tone did not betray my frustration.

  “Let me get you more coffee.” He said and gently took the mug from my hand.

  “With Bailey’s please!” I called out as he entered the house.

  I was waiting for Ashley, my teenage daughter from my first marriage. She had left for the weekend to visit with her father and his family. Visitation was open but it varied, always subject to change depending on her wishes. With tomorrow being a school day, I’d been expecting her home much earlier. She had homework and a test to study for but hadn’t brought any of her textbooks or notes.

  I heard little fingers tapping on the glass paned door behind me and I turned to see the twins, Liam and Laken, with their faces pressed to the glass. They giggled and ran away, leaving behind smudges of their little noses and fingers. I chuckled lightly at the gesture. They were just as anxious as I was to see Ashley. I paused for a moment to wipe the smudges off the glass with the sleeve of my sweater before removing myself from the frigid confines of the sun porch and gladly embracing the cozy interior.

  “Ah, hun.” Marcus called from the kitchen. “We’re out of Bailey’s!”

  “Aww, now that’s a shame.” I said as I entered the room and took a seat at the kitchen table, my fingers drumming the surface impatiently.

  “Relax Emily. She’ll be home soon. Let her have her time with her dad.” He set two steaming mugs of coffee on the table, providing me with a welcome distraction.

  Marcus was right of course, but John, my ex-husband, had always lacked a sense of responsibility. He could never seem to understand that there were obligations that needed to be taken care of and some of them needed to be done in a timely manner. Yes, I was a bit obsessive compulsive but I preferred structure and organization to the disorder and confusion that had haunted the duration of our marriage.

  For the duration of my short marriage to John, I had been the one who financially supported the three of us and that was usually on whatever job I could find. I often found myself working two or three part time jobs just to keep our family ahead of the game.

  The ex-husband wasn’t entirely useless though, he would work occasionally. Unfortunately, it was usually only long enough to be laid off and collect Employment Insurance benefits. When the benefits ran out, we would struggle again for months. It was only after he eventually tired of my constant bitching that he would tear himself away from his computer games long enough to work another half assed job and the cycle would begin again.

  Eventually I had decided that enough was enough and left the marriage. It was much easier to support two of us, Ashley and I, than it had been to support three of us. When Marcus came into our lives and I felt like my life had meaning again. The struggles of the years gone past had taught me to be truly grateful for everything. We had the twins, Liam and Laken, who were now five and Ashley was growing up to be a fine young woman. Life was comfortable but not privileged, our home and possessions comfortable but modest.

  John, or the Ex as I preferred to call him, had moved on as well and appeared to have changed his irresponsible ways. He’d also remarried and they had a daughter that was a year or so younger than the twins. They lived somewhere in the countryside and enjoyed a simple lifestyle in a small, quiet rural home.

  There were times late at night, when I struggled with insomnia and my mind aimlessly drifted through the events of the past. It was frustrating to think that he couldn’t have been a more responsible partner during our own marriage and I always wondered why everything had unfolded the way it did. Even though I was far happier now with Marcus than I’d ever been with John, it was always this one thought that hounded my sleepless nights. There were times when I found it difficult to let go of the past.

  There were never easy answers when I reflected on my life with John, there were only more questions. We were very young when we became parents. It had been an unexpected development that had unfolded in our last year of high school and wanting to do the right thing, we married immediately. Looking back on those moments, I recognized that we were simply too young and inexperienced to fully grasp the binding nature of what we’d entered into.

  I often struggled to remind myself to not look back with regret. I’d learned all I needed to from the past, garnering a wealth of wisdom and knowledge from the experiences of the endless struggles we’d been through. Life’s lessons weren’t always easy but we endured and moved on to embrace new opportunities.


  Here we were and life was good. I had a mug of hot coffee but alas, no Bailey’s. I smiled to myself. Yes, life was good.

  The front door slammed and jolted me from my musings. Marcus smiled at me from across the table, winking with an ‘I told you so’ look. The twins were up and running, delighted to see their big sister.

  “I’m home!” Ashley called out, her weekend bag tossed in a heap on the floor beside the front entrance.

  She was warmly welcomed by her two younger siblings before she could remove her coat and boots. The laughter coming from the front room brought a smile to my face. I rose from the chair and left the comfort of the kitchen to welcome my daughter home. I’d missed her and was just as excited as the twins to see her again.

  As I waited patiently for my turn to welcome her home, I glanced out the front windows overlooking the sun porch and noticed a figure standing there. Puzzled, I raised an eyebrow at Ashley.

  Ashley disentangled herself from the grip of her siblings and shrugged. “Dad wants to talk to you. I don’t know.”

  Marcus entered the room as well and asked. “Do you want me to go out there with you?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s alright.” I answered and reached out for a hug from Ashley.

  He probably just wants to complain about the paltry amount of child support he pays out each month, I thought to myself, not wanting to complain about it in front of Ashley.

  We rarely, if ever, spoke to one another since the divorce and we most certainly never spoke to each other in person. If we did communicate, it was only through text message or email and it was always regarding Ashley, whether it was school, leisure activities or more recently, driving lessons. I was puzzled but curious and admittedly, a little nervous. He wasn’t alone either, I’d noticed. His wife Amy was with him. This would be the first time we’d met.

  As an afterthought, Ashley added in a whisper. “They’ve been acting weird all weekend.” She rolled her eyes and made a face as she headed to her room.

  My eyebrows rose with interest and I quickly ushered the rest of my family into the kitchen for snacks. I was sure that whatever it was they needed to discuss, they would prefer a little privacy to do so. Returning anxiously to the front room, I took a deep breath and gripped the door handle. I turned it hesitantly and stepped into the covered but cold sun porch.

  “Hi!” I said, a little too cheerfully.

  They both had tight, serious and perhaps even fearful looks on their faces. John reached out his hand to shake mine and Amy gave me a small, pinched smile. We eyed each other anxiously and John made a few awkward introductions.

  After shaking Amy’s hand as well, I asked them. “Is everything okay?” I was beginning to feel concerned. “Where’s the little one?”

  Amy relaxed her smile a little bit and replied. “Oh, we left her with my parents. She wanted to stay and play with her cousin.”

  I looked at John and asked again. “Is everything okay?” I felt a tight knot of unease take root in the pit of my stomach and the cold, creeping darkness did very little to dispel the anxious feeling.

  “We had a nice weekend. Ash is driving really well.” He began. “I just have something you need to see.”

  He fumbled clumsily in his coat pocket for something and I was immediately filled with dread. Initially, I feared that they wanted Ashley to live with them or something just as ridiculous. Instead of pulling anything that might resemble legal documents from his pocket, he had in his hand a tiny flash drive.

  “I think you and Marcus should take a look at this. There are some copies of pictures, documents and some videos.” He said as he handed me the flash drive.

  “Um, okay…..thanks.” I replied with confusion, accepting the tiny device.

  He floundered for a moment, looking small and out of place, perhaps a bit uncomfortable. We hadn’t seen or spoken to one another in years. He seemed to become self-conscious, as though suddenly realizing exactly how many years had passed since our last meeting in person. It was an awkward moment for all three of us.

  “Hey, you remember when Ash was little, my friends I use to play online with? The U.S. army guys from Washington?” He blurted out suddenly.

  “Yes.” I replied with a slowly nod. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, you remember Wolf?”

  I did remember Wolf. His real name was Derek Mackenzie and Wolf had been his gamer tag. Again I nodded slowly, my uncertainty growing. Our brief conversation was turning in a whole new direction, one that was even more puzzling. I didn’t understand why he wanted to discuss his old online gaming friends and quietly, I tried to draw some connections between the bizarre conversation and the contents of the flash drive in my hand. Curiosity and confusion had the better of me so I listened intently.

  “I didn’t know you’d kept in touch with those guys. How’re they doing?” I said, trying to keep the conversation light in an effort suppress my growing agitation.

  John raised his eyebrows and let a long sigh escape from his lips. I took that moment to really look at how much he’d changed physically. He’d put on a bit of weight and his hair was beginning to grey and recede. The lines of his face were also showing the progress of the years since our divorce. Altogether, he looked like he’d been doing well for himself and I was pleased that life had given us both a second chance. Aside from the mysterious contents of the flash drive, he looked content.

  “I hadn’t really kept in touch with any of them. We did manage to find each other on Facebook about a year ago. At the time, they were living on a base in Japan. I haven’t heard anything from him at all in the last four months. His wife said he’d been deployed again.”

  “Iraq?” I asked. “Afghanistan?”

  “No,” he responded slowly. “She didn’t even know where he was going. She hasn’t heard from him during the entire deployment. As far as she knows, he’s still out there but no one really knows where he is. No one really knows where his entire unit is. It’s a highly classified special ops mission and because of that, there’s no contact aside from reporting to some sort of command.”

  “Okay, interesting but confusing. Just tell me what this is all about and how it involves me and Marcus.” My agitation was beginning to show despite my best efforts to keep it hidden. “In other words, get to the point.”

  John seemed to be using his masterful skills of manipulation to interrupt my family’s routine on a quiet Sunday night. There were still little chores that need to be finished before the twins went to bed. Ashley needed to get her homework and studying done. My favorite television show would be on in a few hours and I wanted everything done before then. John and Amy’s unexpected visit was quickly losing its novelty and becoming tiresome. At the same time, the chilly winter air on the sun porch was making my hands and feet grow uncomfortably colder.

  “Wolf’s wife, you remember her? Her name is Gina. The two of you used to email each other. Did you keep in touch?”

  “No, we didn’t.” I replied with an irritated sigh. I cast a sidelong glance at Amy hoping for some insight into this strange conversation.

  Her expression betrayed nothing but the same fear and apprehension. I realized then that her uneasiness had absolutely nothing to do with our sudden reunion after almost a decade. It seemed to have something to do with the innocuous little flash drive.

  “About a week ago, she received a package in the mail with a note from Wolf, er, Derek. The package had what she thought was a pirated DVD copy of some kids’ movie but there ended up being a hidden file on the DVD. It was a notepad file with instructions to locate a micro SD card hidden in the DVD’s cover. There were more instructions on the card and a note written inside the cover of the DVD. It explained that the contents of the card were highly classified. But that the information on it was very, very important for her and their kids, for their safety. She copied the contents of the card and sent them to the people he asked that she send it to, which was pretty much all his non-military friends from his Faceboo
k page. Because it’s so classified, it couldn’t be sent through email or any online communication. She copied everything to flash drives and micro cards and sent them through the mail. I got it this week but the original DVD that Gina received had been sent about two months ago. From somewhere in China.”

  I laughed. “What the hell are they doing in China?!”

  Neither one of them laughed. They exchanged a brief look of concern and returned their gaze to mine. This time Amy spoke. “Just look at the flash drive. Send us a message through email or text when you do.”

  John added. “Pay attention to any news coming out of China right now.”

  I was thoughtful for a moment and asked. “Is this about that bird flu outbreak?”

  There had been a flurry of news stories from China a month or so ago but just as quickly as the media had started discussing it, they’d abruptly stopped. The big news at the moment was the unusually cold winter with record setting subzero temperatures, wind chills and above average snow fall. Prior to the insanely cold winter, the news stories close to Christmas time had revolved around a possible bird flu outbreak somewhere in a very remote region of northern China. Christmas had come and gone with nothing new being reported and eventually the story lost its hold to another celebrity’s drug addiction.

  It was John’s turn to laugh. “This is no bird flu.” He replied sarcastically.

  Chapter Two

  “Ash!” I knocked on the door repeatedly. “Get up! We’re going to be late!”

  With a frustrated sigh I headed back into the kitchen. I still needed to finish preparing everyone’s lunches for the day.

  Liam and Laken were already awake and sat sleepily at the table eating their Cheerios. Mornings were always a challenge but Monday mornings were even more so. My mind was in a fog thanks to a fitful sleep the night before. I was going to be late for work, the kids would be late for school and I really didn’t care.

  “Eat your vitamins.” I reminded the twins with a yawn.